A Thousand Variations
by Penn Flinn
Summary: In one universe, Barry Allen faces the aftermath of his time at the hands of General Eiling. In another, Cisco Ramon gets a vibe. (Follow-up/companion piece to "One Second," one-shot)


**Long time, no see-or has it only been a week? I'm moving ahead with a few more projects, and I thought this would be a good one to start with. This is a companion piece to my last story, "One Second." While you can read this one independently, it will probably make more sense in both content and form if you've read "One Second."**

 **Vague, general spoilers through 2x04. As for the timeline of this story-the first half picks up directly after "One Second," and the second half is potentially a few months or a year after 2x04, assuming Caitlin and Barry have learned about Cisco's powers by then.**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

 _Barry doesn't realize he's dreaming until it's too late._

 _Because above him, sneering, is the face of General Eiling; blue sparks arc away from him and land on Barry's chest, and Barry is paralyzed._

 _His first instinct is to scream, but he is choking, suffocating, on nothing but air. He leaps up, past the specter of the General, and rolls. Blankets tear away from him, something tugs at his skin-the IV line, ripped in a spray of blood from the crook of his arm. Then cold floor against his bare feet._

 _He does the only thing he can think to do: he runs._

 _However, as he stumbles forward, he realizes that his muscles are stiff, and that lightning energy he has gotten so used to is out of his grasp. He staggers drunkenly forward, the feeling of inhibited running now foreign to him, his vision blurry and his body crying out for him to stop._

 _Still, he runs, driven by terror, by the image that yanked him violently from darkness._

 _He doesn't realize where he is until he hits the edge of one of the tables in the cortex. His hip bounces against the corner, his arms connect with something heavy. The object falls. A crash of glass echoes through the gaping wound of a room, and little pieces rush around Barry's feet. Uncomprehending, he lurches forward, this time hitting a chair and knocking it over as well._

 _Blind with fear, he teeters a few more paces and collides with a wall, the saving grace that stops him in his tracks, brings him sliding to the floor. The impact reminds him of his physical body, the ache that runs bone-deep, the hurt that bleeds from cold's knife-like fingers. He crumples into a heap on the ground, unable or unwilling to rearrange himself into a more dignified position._

 _Where is his phone? He's in his STAR t-shirt and sweatpants. No phone. No contact._

 _Instead, he does the only other thing he can think of. He yells._

 _"Caitlin." It comes out as less of a yell and more of a desperate, hoarse wail. "Cisco?"_

 _But they are already there. Likely the noise of his ungainly flight woke them from where they'd been resting in two of the adjoining rooms-he'd firmly asked them not to stay at his bedside, to get normal rest like normal people. They'd been reluctant, and, let's face it, they were probably right, but he couldn't stand to see them lose any more sleep over him. Even now, emerging from their rooms, they don't look like functioning humans. Dark patches like bruises are smudged under their eyes, and their hair sticks up unnaturally, unwashed and unkempt. They haven't even changed into pajamas, passing out instead in the clothes they've been wearing since Barry was taken. And now their accessory is one Barry has seen too much in the past twenty-four hours: eyes, faces, bodies flooded with panic._

 _"Barry?" Caitlin says, striding forward toward him, her mouth a downward slash of worry._

 _"It's him," Barry says, grasping at his chest, grasping at anything. "Eiling. Here."_

 _Caitlin and Cisco exchange a glance, but Cisco cuts in before Caitlin can voice her fear. "He's not," he says. "I've hooked up monitors, alarms, to every entrance of this building. No one gets in here without us knowing, and Dr. Wells is up keeping a lookout." His foot crunches on broken glass, and he leaps back in alarm. Thankfully he's wearing socks, but he has a pained, shocked look on his face as he takes in the broken computer monitor on the floor._

 _Barry shudders violently. He can't properly move on his own, so Caitlin gently grips him by the shoulders and gets him to a sitting position. Then she places a hand on his forehead._

 _"Hey," she says softly. "What hurts?"_

 _At the sight of the broken computer monitor, the world is slowly coming back to him. The dream is fading, receding, though terror still sours the back of his throat._

 _The cortex is dark, lit up only by a few backup lamps in one of the other rooms. He feels like a child frightened of the dark again, taking refuge in the bathroom light Joe would leave on for him. Straining toward the one thing that might save him from monsters._

 _"Barry?" Caitlin asks again. "What hurts?"_

 _"Everything," he whispers. "I'm so sorry."_

 _He can't believe that he's crying, can't believe that he's shivering against the wall like this, can't believe what he's done. There's nothing he can express to make them comprehend, make them forgive him for the sorry mess he's making._

 _"Don't be sorry," Cisco says, crouching down just behind Caitlin, who is examining Barry's wrist now, making sure he hasn't damaged it further, pulling up his shirt to inspect the bandages constricting his torso. "Whatever it is, we can fix it...you're safe, okay?"_

 _"I don't mean…" Barry pauses, trying to put it into words. "I mean that all of it...it just felt so real...it's not..."_

 _But he can see, immediately, that they understand. Caitlin stops examining him, stops searching for the physical hurt, because while it's there, it no longer seems important. Instead she sits back on her heels, looking less panicked but more exhausted than before._

 _"I thought I would be fine," Barry continues. "I'm sorry."_

 _"Again with the apologizing," Cisco says. "Believe me, the first time I watched Saw, I slept outside of my parents' bedroom for two nights straight. I think you're warranted in the nightmare department, bro."_

 _Barry can't help but crack a smile at this. The world has sifted back in its entirety, and Eiling's face from the dream already seems less physical. His heartbeat is slowing._

 _"I never watched it," he says, feeling incredibly stretched. "I'm not one for horror films."_

 _Caitlin's trembling now, and he realizes that she's crying, silent streaks cutting down her cheeks. It's happening right in front of him, but somehow it feels like a private thing. His hand is wet from his own tears, but he reaches for her._

 _"I wish none of this had happened," she says. It sounds hollow, a mantra that all of them had been silently thinking for hours but which had never seemed substantial enough to say. Cisco slides to the wall, presses his back against it, his shoulder close to Barry's. He blinks heavily against the adrenaline crash, wordlessly agreeing._

 _Then Barry breaks the silence. "Can you stay close tonight?" he says, and it's such a stark admission against his earlier justifications that he can't look at them. "I just...I don't think I can be alone right now."_

 _There's no talking. None of them need to say anything._

* * *

Cisco doesn't realize it's a dream until it's too late.

In another timeline, he wakes, sweating, from the chair he'd dozed off in earlier. He'd been up too late the night before, far too late, and he'd fallen asleep at his workstation. Caitlin had told him not to work so hard, but he did. Anything to keep his mind busy, his thoughts out of the troubling spiral he's often found himself in these past few weeks.

He really does know that falling asleep at his work station is bad for his back. But sometimes when he accidentally falls asleep like this, the discomfort keeps the dreams at bay.

Not today.

He's up and fumbling with his phone before he can even process what's happening. All he knows is that he saw the vision, saw it crystal clear, and he can't think of anything but Caitlin's number, Caitlin's voice-

"Cisco? Where are you?"

"Barry's been taken," he says. "B-by General Eiling. And I can't-I don't know-"

"Slow down," she says, and there's alarm in her voice. "Eiling? How do you know? Is it..."

"It's a vision, yeah," he says, but there's already a nagging part of his brain that is telling him something important. He's missed something. "We have to...we..."

Caitlin's off of the phone in an instant, though he can still hear her fingers clattering across a keyboard. She must be upstairs. He hangs up the phone and vaults up the stairwell in record time, meeting her in the cortex with his cell in hand, already dialing another number.

"He doesn't have his suit on him," Caitlin says. "There's no way to track him. Maybe his phone..."

Cisco's already calling it, and the realization is sinking in. The images are fading, and he is piecing together the flurry of activity that had assaulted him.

After a few rings, Barry picks up.

"Yo."

"Barry," Cisco almost chokes on the word. "Come to STAR. Now. Please."

Maybe Barry can hear the tightness in Cisco's throat, the residual fear. He doesn't ask why. He doesn't say anything. He's there in five seconds, shoes actually _smoldering_ , but he's there, whole, alive, well.

"What's wrong?" he asks, looking at both a teary Cisco and a baffled Caitlin for an explanation. Caitlin can't give it, but Cisco can.

"I..." he begins. "I had a vision."

"Is someone in trouble?" Barry asks, and Cisco can see the man's mind ticking through each possibility, each potential victim, each potential heartbreak. "Who is it? Where?"

"It was you," Cisco says, unraveling the truth as he says it. "You. All of us. I don't know."

Barry steps closer, and so does Caitlin; they both look more confused than scared now, but that's fine. Cisco has the scared and the pained and the traumatized all covered for the both of them. He knows now what he saw.

"One of the other Earths," he says. "In one of the other Earths, you're…" He's seen all of it, and it's too much to vocalize. His throat is stuck. "I'm so sorry, Barry."

He can't do it. He breaks, and the reasons are too unfathomable to consider. He only knows that he has to move forward, grip Barry around the middle, hard. Barry hugs him back, though perhaps he doesn't understand why.

Cisco holds on to Barry, the real Barry, the Barry that managed to escape from Eiling that night at Jitters. He needs to stay grounded like this, can't think about the one in his vision. They're not the same. He knows this, deep down, but he can't help but feel the tremors of all of those Earths weighing down on him, feel the fear and the guilt and the sadness and the pain of them.

Mostly, he is ashamed. He is ashamed that he is happy to be in this one.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading! As I was considering "One Second," I was interested in finding a way to connect my story to the canon, so this is that attempt-by kind of reversing the form/structure of "One Second" in regard to which universe is considered secondary. I also just really needed a Barry/Cisco hug in my life. And an excuse to use the title I'd actually intended for "One Second" but forgot about.**

 **If you've got a moment, please leave a review! And to those of you also participating in Nanowrimo, happy writing!**

 **Till next time,**

 **Penn**


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